Freedom Park’s Long History: Veterans, Presidents, Cruisers, and Lake-draining – Charlotte Magazine

1939:

A group of Charlotte Lions Club members wins a bowling tournament and the prize of a steak dinner. Over the steaks, they discuss potential club projects and agree that the city needs a first-rate city park, with not just fields and playgrounds, but picnic grounds and even a shallow lake that might be used for ice skating in winter.

1943:

In the midst of World War II, the Lions Club decides to pair its park idea with an effort to honor the 10,000 Mecklenburg County residents in the military. The club raises more than $40,000 and begins to buy parcels of an old polo field between East Boulevard and Princeton Avenue. The field is in the expanding Myers Park neighborhood, along what was then called Sugaw (later Little Sugar) Creek.

Fall 1944:

The Lions Club has assembled more than 100 acres, hired a designer, and formed the Charlotte Park Association, which launches a fundraiser to raise $400,000—about $7 million in 2024 dollars.

April 3, 1945:

A committee chaired by Mayor Herbert H. Baxter selects “Freedom Park” as the name, submitted by Corporal Joe B. Gettis of 425 North Brevard Street, who has written in from his Army post on Corsica to explain his choice: “(B)ecause there the children will be free—Free from want. Free from fear. Free from the thought of growing up to fight another war as we did.”

May 29, 1945:

The Freedom Park project earns the endorsement of the city Planning Board, which proclaims the new park “should be considered to Charlotte as Central Park is to New York or Lincoln Park is to Chicago. The Lions Club is to be congratulated on the momentous task they have undertaken.”

July 15, 1947:

The Lions Club turns over the first section of the park, including 12 tennis courts, to the city Park and Recreation Commission. Plans include illuminated softball and baseball diamonds and a football field.

November 13, 1947:

The lake is stocked with 5,000 bream fingerlings from the state hatchery in Fayetteville.

March 12, 1948:

Police search for suspects who drained the lake, killing most of the fish. Chief Frank N. Littlejohn says the vandals left little evidence, “but investigators are trying to track down several men and women who were reported to have been seen, in a drunken condition, on the lake shore late Thursday afternoon.”

Spring 1948:

The park, still under development, opens to the public. Flower- and tree-planting programs begin, and the lake is refilled and restocked with fish.

March 22, 1950:

The Junior League approves a plan for a $50,000 Children’s Nature Center building in the park. It will remain for the next 74 years.

Original Nature Museum, Courtesy UNCC Special Collections

May 18, 1954:

President Dwight D. Eisenhower addresses a crowd of about 30,000 as U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy chairs hearings over what he alleges is Communist infiltration of the government. It’s the first of two appearances in the park by a president, this one to celebrate Armed Forces Day and the 179th anniversary of the signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. “Like most of the people gathered in beautiful, green Freedom Park,” the Observer reports, “he ate a boxed fried-chicken lunch, drank iced tea, and had a wonderful time.”

Charlotte Observer Photograph Collection/Charlotte Mecklenburg Library

November 1959:

The Parks and Recreation Commission receives one of the park’s most beloved landmarks, a 1920 steam locomotive from the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. It remains there to this day.

September 21, 1965:

The first day of the first-ever Festival in the Park, which draws ever-growing crowds throughout the week.

May 20, 1975:

Before a crowd of 105,000, thought to be the largest in the park’s history, President Gerald Ford marks the Meckenburg Declaration of Independence’s 200th anniversary with a 15-minute speech from the park band shell that praises the South and its people.

June 1988:

Charlotte police begin cracking down on “cruisers” who slowly drive around the park and cause traffic gridlock by forcing visitors to park—a move some Black residents interpret as racist. “What they’re saying is that when too many Blacks get together, there’s going to be trouble,” says 24-year-old Rodney Sellers. “That’s ridiculous.”

July 6, 1989:

City officials, concerned about overcrowding and aging facilities, announce an $11.6 million plan to refurbish the park and limit its use. It was envisioned as a “district park,” meant to serve the neighborhoods around it, not a “community park” meant for the entire city, says park Superintendent Tom McDermott. Among the planned changes: moving the Nature Center to Discovery Place uptown and outdoor concerts to other venues; new and relocated playgrounds and athletic fields; and draining, dredging, landscaping around, and improving the lake.

September 22, 1989:

The park, along with the rest of Charlotte, sustains significant damage from Hurricane Hugo. The storm—and overaggressive Duke Power crews in its aftermath—topple 850 pines, 39 oaks, and 867 miscellaneous trees.

1991-92:

A volunteer group called City Trees plants 7,500 trees to restore the park’s canopy.

November 1994:

Mecklenburg County commissioners institute a $3-per-car fee on weekends and holidays for Freedom and four other parks, in an effort to curb continued overcrowding.

March 1995:

Commissioners, having fielded numerous complaints and observed the effects of traffic on surrounding streets, scrap the fee.

June 2006:

The Freedom Park Neighborhood Association names the ​​indoor shelter and park offices the Mahlon Adams Pavilion to honor a longtime resident and community activist.

June 2020:

Hundreds gather and march in the park to protest the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.

Courtesy, Discovery Place

January 31, 2024:

The Children’s Nature Museum—now called Discovery Place Nature—closes for a $16 million renovation to replace the main building, built in 1951. The new facility, expected to open in 2025, will include a treetop canopy walk, a naturalist lab, and North American river otter and turtle habitats.

GREG LACOUR is the editor.